Inside New Lab, an 84,000-Square-Foot Tech Paradise in Brooklyn

Left, New Lab, a collaborative workspace for emerging technology in robotics, artificial intelligence, and design, has just opened in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once the epicenter of American shipbuilding. Now the refurbished warehouse is a harbor for innovation once again; Right, founders Scott Cohen and David Belt.

Photographs by Floto & Warner.

Nearly a century ago, Building 128 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a hub
of military innovation—tens of thousands of workers toiling by the
water, building parts for ships used in both World Wars. This month, the
building reopens as New Lab, a hub for a different kind of innovation,
an 84,000-square-foot space filled with 350 hardware engineers,
designers, and entrepreneurs delving into robotics, artificial
intelligence, and nanotechnology.

“This was state-of-the-art in manufacturing when it was built, and we
started thinking about what the state of the art in manufacturing is
now,” said David Belt, a real-estate developer who came to the project
with his partner, Scott Cohen, in 2011. They decided that meant a place
where 50 companies could rent designated office space under the 70-foot
ceilings, snack on grain bowls with other New Lab-ers in tree-dotted,
iron-framed, rainbow-colored communal work lounges, and share a full
metal-and-wood shop, a 3-D printing lab, and digital manufacturing
tools. The combination makes it a Field of Dreams for any designer
without the high-tech resources to actually make prototypes meets a Soho
House for the more bookishly inclined—a Brooklyn real-estate dream
meets a pastiche of Silicon Valley.

There are still touches of the original navy history among the robot
prototypes and interactive architectural L.E.D. systems. The giant
cranes used to carry ship-engine parts made in the factory remain. Now
they hold up a bridge on which engineers in Converse and raw denim eat
sour-cherry-yogurt pots from the café downstairs.

Left, a milling machine in the prototype shop; Right, New Lab, a center for engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs under one roof.